The Bailout Bill

[BlaqueKatt]

This sucks. I can find no good thing to come out of this.

I can

Mental health parity gets OK'd through bailout

New protections require equal treatment of physical, mental ailments-it was an "add-on" to the bailout bill, this is a very good thing for those of us with loved ones suffering from mental illness who had insurance that only covered 10 psychiatrist visits per year, and did not cover hospitalization for mental illness.

[Slytovhand]

Not commenting on the deservedness of such an add-on, but I am wondering just why it was added to the bailout bill rather than a bill on it's own???

[Boozy]

They wouldn't have been able to get it passed on its own. By attaching it to a bill that had to pass, they guaranteed it becoming law.

Maybe an American can explain it better. All I know is that law-making in the US is really complicated.

[lordlundar]

It's quite simple. Bills have to be passed or rejected as they are written. It can't be determined what parts of a bill can pass and which can't. To do so would cause the government to run slower than it currently is (if that's even possible). The only way that a bill can be modified is if it fails a reading, at which point it can be modified and resubmitted.

The bailout bill failed it's first shot, so a lot of bills that individually would only get a handful of votes were tacked on. These extra bills were picked to get a yes vote out of key members, saying that the only way to get what you want passed, is by voting in favor of the bailout bill. There were enough tacked on to get a near unanimous vote in favor to make it look like the bailout bill was an overwhelming success, when in actuality, it was politicians voting in favor of their pet projects.

[Slytovhand]

Ah... bribery - what a wonderful concept

[BlaqueKatt]

They wouldn't have been able to get it passed on its own. By attaching it to a bill that had to pass, they guaranteed it becoming law.

pretty much-it failed several times on it's own due to the insurance companies lobbyists. Sadly there is a movie that explains the lobbying process and adding on things to stronger bills to get them to pass-it's called "legally blonde 2", actualy not a horrible movie, and you do learn about the lawmaking process.

[daleduke17]

Ah... bribery - what a wonderful concept

Yeah, legalized bribery. The bailout was a stupid fucking idea in the first place, so, let's put stuff in there that would make Congress look like a bunch of heartless bastards if they don't vote yes so it will pass.

And it is nice to see Obama, McCain and Biden show up for once and actually vote (not just choose "present"). Too bad they all three voted for basically welfare. If you can't make your payments, you lose whatever you didn't/couldn't pay for. I'm pretty sure there was something in the paperwork signed about that (generic "you"s).

[Greenday]

So now that the bailout's gone on for a bit, banks are still receiving money, what do you guy's think about the bailout now? Totally worth it, eh?

Oh, but wait! The bailing out of morons isn't over yet. Now the American car companies want a piece of the the check too. They aren't making as much money lately so they feel they deserve something for nothing. Hm, maybe, if you didn't keep trying to push those hunk of junk SUVs and other pieces of crap, this wouldn't have happened. While foreign companies were making cars with great gas mileage, the American companies continued to make their SUVs that burn money in your wallet like there's no tomorrow. Dumbasses.

Here's a bailout that's actually worth supporting: http://www.facebook.com/inbox/readme...id=31344557829

If you can't view it, it's a petition to Congress for a student loan bailout. Giving money to people who ACTUALLY need it. People who will ACTUALLY be thankful for the money. Then, instead of spending all of our money repaying our loans, which isn't doing much for the economy, we could be spending our first 5-10 years out of college buying stuff like new homes, vehicles, food, etc., instead of just paying back loans, not helping the economy, and being deep in debt.

[AFPheonix]

If you want to point fingers at the companies for making SUVs, you'd sure better point your finger at the populace that made it profitable to continue making those vehicles.
Perhaps point fingers at oil companies and the government for making fuel cheap enough to make it possible for people to operate those vehicles.

While the companies are guilty of mismanagement, they are not guilty of at least grasping basic economics. I will make the argument that they should have made smaller vehicles to compete globally as well, but that's a grump for another day.
Hell, even since gas prices dropped in the last month or two, demand for smaller cars and hybrids has dropped correspondingly. We as a purchasing public are just as culpable.

[Greenday]

I know the general population is partly to blame for buying gas guzzling vehicles, but for the car companies to continue to make SUVs while so few people were bothering to buy them, the companies are to blame for selling products no one wanted and for losing out on so much money.

I don't blame the oil companies. They knew how so many people had to buy so much gas and since their was a high demand for gas, they could charge more. They earned their money quite well.

[AFPheonix]

That's the thing though. People ARE still buying them. Now that gas is down to $1.70 people are purchasing that vehicle type again, not Prius or other small cars.

The only time there was a dip was when gas got spendy.

[Boozy]

GM decided to start making SUV's for the general public because they already had the facilities and expertise to make them due to their military division. The problem was that there was no demand for these behemoths, especially among women.

You'd think it would be the height of hubris to assume that you can make whatever product you want and consumers will buy it because you tell them to buy it. But we North Americans can be real suckers for marketing and advertising, so we were all quite shortly convinced that we all wanted - no, needed - an SUV. You still hear soccer moms calling them a necessity, saying they don't know how they'd get by without one. That would be news to my mother, who raised four kids just fine with a little Ford hatchback.

SUV craze temporarily saved the dying American auto industry. When the SUV bubble burst, they were back to where they were before; making over-priced cars with over-priced labour facing increasing competition from foreign competitors.

North American auto manufacturing needs to die, just as the American textile industry needed to die, and the steel industry needed to die. Their time has passed. There are other countries that can do these things cheaper and better, and we need to let them. We have a comparatively well-educated work force and a strong technological infrastructure. There are other things our economy should be focused on.

With that said, I don't know if NOW is the best time to allow the entire auto industry to sink. It would be a major blow in strong economic times; it could be disastrous now. We have a chance to prevent this recession from turning into a depression, and we need to do that. It's expensive, and certainly we'd all like to spend our money on other things, but unfortunately we are where we are.

[Greenday]

Not all American car companies can die. Who will make the Mustangs and the Corvettes and the Chargers and the Challengers and the Camaros and the...

You get the idea. No one else will make muscle cars like these. American muscle RULES.

[protege]

The problems of the "Big 3" have been a *long* time coming. GM especially created their own problems. For years, they've had too many similar vehicles chasing the same dollars. Rather than have each division stick to what they know, they tried to "badge engineer" different vehicles under all of the brands. Cadillac Cimarron, anyone? That aside, not only did they segment the market, but they blurred the lines between their divisions.

British Leyland (MG's parent company until 1980) did the same thing. Using their 1100/1300 series as an example, they sold that design under 6 different names--Austin, Morris, Riley, MG, Vanden Plas, and Wolseley. Nothing was really different with all of those cars--they used the same engines, basic body shells, and other parts. Most of the "differences" were relatively minor--different grilles, dashboards, etc. was about it. Like GM, BL "had" to continue those other makes because of owner loyalty. By the 1970s, BL was broke, and managed to discontinue most of them--only Morris, MG, Triumph, and Austin lasted past 1980...and out of those, only MG is still around...albeit under Chinese ownership.

In fact, one of the auto boards I belong to, is referring to GM as "BL part 2." Nearly all the same things are there--changing market place, massive losses of jobs, imported cars gaining more ground, etc.

Anyway, I do not support a bailout for GM, Ford, or Chrysler. At least not without some conditions. First, get rid of management. Those fools got the companies into this mess. Second, consolidate divisions--is it really necessary to have GMC *and* Chevy building trucks? Third--they're going to have to consolidate and modernize factories if they're going to stay competitive.

Let's not forget this--it's a simple fact that you can't have high wages and low prices. You can have one or the other, but not both. That's why some companies started offshoring or outsourcing jobs...and why manufacturing in the US will never be what it once was.

[AFPheonix]

I would say that GM and Ford are worth saving, Chrysler, however, has been circling the drain for years. I don't think I support keeping them alive.
I do disagree with saying that American manufacturing needs to die. There's a reason why companies like Toyota build plants for them here. We have good workers, and manufacturing actual products like cars impact huge swaths of the economy, including all the people who sell the cars, the people who work at ports to send the cars overseas, truckers who move the cars across the country, and people who make the parts to send to the car plants, just to name a few.
What Ford and GM need to do is to be more competitive globally as well. The need to grow into other markets and that involves coming up with models that can sell in places with narrower roads and higher fuel prices. GM especially kills me because they have been on the cutting edge of really cool stuff in the past like EV-1, and then they shelve it in favor of big-ass trucks.
It's too bad.